ballet_chiq

Hello --

I have a 1999 ML 430 that I bought for a really cheap price to go to school, but I didn't realize how much it costs to maintain the car!!!

I learned how to change the oil from this forum, and I am able to do that now -- thanks!

I would like to know how to get the coolant out of the car so I can "flush it" and put new coolant in. Can anyone tell me where the drain plug is to get the coolant out. It would help if you could show me a digital picture of what it looks like! Please consider that I am a girl that was never mechanically inclined while growing up, but I can follow directions pretty closely.

Thanks a lot.

ballet_chiq
Ballerinas are TOUGHER than you think

springerfever

can't answer your question, but if you do a search I believe there is information on where the pet**** is located on the radiator. If memory serves me right, its located on the bottom right of radiator..if you were sitting in drivers seat, but requires a little work to open. Fairly certain there is a how-to somewhere on the site.

Good luck with your ML..my 99 has over 200,000 miles..so take care of it..it will take care of you and built like a tank !!

ballet_chiq

Hello --

Sorry for not quite following, but I don't know what a pet**** is. Is it the thingy that lets the coolant out of the radiator? How would I recognize it? Does it look like a bolt?

I tried to search on this website and found instructions on what type of coolant (either Zerex G05 or MB OEM coolant) and also the steps on how to flush, but noone has described what the drain thing looks like.

Thank you so much for any help!

saturnstyl

The pet**** is located on the bottom of the radiator on the passenger side. Its difficult to open because of its position. I would get a large bucket and ****** the lower hose off instead.

mlmoose

On my '02, it's on the passenger side, on the FRONT of the radiator. Face the truck, look down to the lower left corner (passenger side) of the radiator. There is a black plastic tab barely sticking out. You should be able to just grasp it with a finger and a thumb. Turn it to the left to open it. Mine would start to open then catch, so I had to use a pair of channel-lock pliers to open it. The previous post about taking the lower radiator hose off is probably as good if you can't find the valve. You may not be able to reach it from the top side, and may have to go from underneath. That can get messy. But good luck...it's not too tough of a job.

springerfever

I find it kinda amusing we can't call it what it really is but pet valve will suffice. The actual name is pet**** with the last four letters being a slang term for male genitalia. OOOOOKKKKK...moving on

Make sure to use the correct MB coolant on the refill. Its specifically designed not to react with a variety of materials in the cooling system. There is a web page called Curts..or possibly Kurts.. ML and I believe thats where you will find some additional info...Good luck with the project !

azinn

Just curious springerfever, have you replaced your radiator hoses yet?

ballet_chiq

Yippppeeee!!! Thanks for everyone's help. I see the drain thing to the radiator, and I also see the big hose at the bottom passenger-side of the radiator.

Now all I need to do is try turning the thing as hard as I can! Well, I know I can take off the big hose if I can't get the drain thing to move.

Thanksssss xoxoxoxo

springerfever

You know I'll have to go back and research all of my service records to see if the hoses have been replaced. My god....after 200,000 you would certainly think they would need replacing! I know at about 125,000 I had the radiator flushed and antifreeze replaced. If they needed replacing, I'm sure I had the shop do it.

I am always doing visual inspections and I know there is no dry rot visible on the hoses, but sometimes it can be internal. Also the lower hose rarely gets examined. With winter right around the corner its a great time to examine the system and make sure its good to go. Thanks for the query.....just the motivation I needed !

springerfever

ballet chiq...........makes me a little nervous when you take a wrench to a fitting that hasn't been turned in quite a while.

First tip, give it a little shot of WD40 or equilivent to maybe free up the threads..

Second tip....and maybe someone can answer this one definitatively:

Which way do you turn this petvalve to drain ? Generally you turn counter-clockwise to loosen, but some fittings are the opposite and you'll NEVER get it to budge if your turning the wrong direction ! (unless it breaks off, then you've got a real problem)

Keep us posted !!

saturnstyl

Its made of plastic... WD40 probably won't help. Righty tighty lefty loosey.

ballet_chiq

Hi everyone!

Thanks so much for the direction to turn the plastic drain thing; it's pretty hard to move. My hands and arms are getting a workout!

Anyways, I think I will rest for a day and try again later, otherwise it's off with the big radiator hose!

Maybe I can help everyone else a little. One thing I know how to do is shop! So I shopped around for MB-approved antifreeze (either MB OEM or Zerex G05 according to people on this website). Guess what? The MB dealers all sell the OEM antifreeze for around $14 to $15 per gallon container. The only automotive store chain that I could find that consistently sells Zerex G05 is NAPA (I had to e-mail Zerex's parent company Valvoline to find this out). But each NAPA store seems to be separately owned, so they all set different prices. The price for a gallon container of Zerex G05 has ranged from $9.49 to $13.38 at various NAPA stores that I called in Virginia. Not a huge difference, but why pay more for the exact same product? So when you find a NAPA store that sells for $9.49, that's the place to buy! :p

ballet_chiq

I forgot to mention that if you show your AAA card, they will give you a further discount at NAPA for the Zerex G05 antifreeze. So it will bring it down to $8.83 per gallon container.

ballet_chiq

Finished coolant flush!!! Thanks everyone for the help.

Just in case there is anyone else out there who is at the same level as me (beginner who knows nothing, but is willing to learn and try it), this is what I did.

First, the plastic drain valve is located on the lower left side (passenger side) and bottom of the radiator as you are looking from in front of the car, but it is very well hidden by a bracket underneath the car, and by the body sheet metal in the front of the car. You can work a little better if you remove the black metal bracket that is under the radiator. There are four silver bolts with hex heads that hold the bracket on -- remove these. Then open the hood and look in-between the bumper and radiator for a flat plastic square piece. You will barely be able to see it from this position. You can also see it from under the car if you put your head in front of the passenger-side front tire. In the closed position it will be horizontally oriented. It will look like the hands of a clock if the hour hand was at 9 and the minute hand was at 3, and the hands solidly extended out in depth by about 1 cm.

Second, I opened the coolant reservoir cap and opened the drain valve. To turn open the drain valve you must rotate the plastic valve counter-clockwise while facing it from the front of the car, just as one of the people said in this thread. But I found it impossible to do by hand, so I found a long curved wrench and from the hole in the left lower front bumper (where it looks like a fog light belongs), I barely got my wrench in. I carefully turned the valve with a bucket underneath. The coolant comes out from the little rubber hole (looks like a rubber round bumper thing) in a nice narrow stream -- easy to catch with a bucket. Be patient, and you don't have to use a lot of strength with a wrench.

Third, after emptying the radiator, I closed the valve and filled the radiator with filtered water (filtered with my Britta water filter with activated carbon) and ran the engine with heater on high for 10 minutes. I drained this water.

Fourth, I put Zerex Radiator Super Cleaner (on sale for $3.29 for 32 oz container at Advance Auto Parts) and topped the radiator off with filtered water. I ran around with this in my car for a bit over a day, then drained the cleaner/water mix.

Fifth, I refilled the radiator with filtered water, ran the car with heater on, and then drained again.

Sixth, I filled the radiator with Zerex G05 coolant mixed 50/50 with filtered water (coolant was $8.83 per gallon at NAPA Auto Parts with AAA discount, I bought 2 gallons).

So I spent $20.95 total plus 4.5% tax for my radiator flush. It feels so good when you are able to complete this!!!

springerfever

Congratulations!! Sounds like you did a great job ! Keep us posted on the next project you tackle !!

springerfever

I tackled this same project yesterday and its pretty simple to accomplish. After looking back at my receipts over the years, I realized the radiator hoses were the originals with over 200,000 miles ! With winter coming on, I thought it best to just to replace regardless of condition.

MB wants $40.50 for the upper and $45.38 for the lower radiator hoses. A new thermostat would run $37.50. I called NAPA and found the proper hoses for a lot cheaper and excellent quality! The upper hose is NAPA 9215 and set me back $11.99 and the lower is NAPA 9214 for $10.69. Only the dealer can supply the thermostat. After replacing the hoses, I opted to leave the original thermostat in, it appears to be in great shape and was functioning normally.

I also picked up two gallons of Zerez G-5 for $9.49 each, a quart of Zerez radiator flush and a Prestone flush/fill kit for backflushing the system and the heater core. After replacing the hoses,backflushing,running the cleaner through, I ran just water through twice and then filled with a 60/40 antifreeze/water mixture.

The upper hose is a piece of cake..the lower a little more difficult. I had to remove the stainless skid plate that came with the front light bar, but that also gave me better access to the drain pet-valve. BTW there are also two drain valves located on the block, just above the motor mounts and directly below the exhaust manifold. They are removed with an internal allen wrench, which allows the block to drain.

All in all, it took me about four hours, but I was doing some miscellaneous cleaning after removing some items. A local MB shop quoted me $250.00 for the job, so it was time well spent.

BTW, both the hoses I removed were in pretty good shape; probably would have gone quite a bit longer. A little soft and spongy, but no cracks/swelling/etc. I'll save them just in case !

azinn

Nothing like a little DIY to save a few bucks and know the job is done right. Those hoses must be made of German rubber. Better to be safe than sorry with those hoses though.

On another note, have you replaced any O2 Sensors yet? I just had the front passenger side one replaced last week at 60,000 miles. The check wallet light came on, which was followed up with a trip to the dealer for the fix.

springerfever

I like the CHECK WALLET analogy....how true! My CE light came on during this little project. but that was due to my removing the entire air filter housing to get to a drain valve. That left the MAF just hangin' and I cycled the coolant/flush/water steps without reinstalling the housing. Luckily after finishing and reconnecting the filter assembly, the light went out.

The only O2 item I have replaced is the MAF about a year ago. Not exactly sure what caused it to go bad..but I feel fortunate. I see a lot of posts about folks having to replace MAF's regularly, and they're expensive !!

Workhorse

The drain plug on the ml430 is in the hole next to the one on the left (looking at it from the front of the car) that looks like a fog light would go. You will see a bolt holding the bumper on, behind and above that you will see the drain plug. Turn it anti clockwise, finger tight only. Fingers only when you do it up again.

three56a

Here is a picture of where the antifreeze plug is.... I took this from the. passenger tire area. turn tire pointing out and look right in.... you don't really
need to put your head in...

it IS very difficult to grab the plug with your fingers. maybe you need ballerina fingers... BTW I am also female.


good luck

Jimbo Bigbelly

I had a new radiator installed a couple months ago, and suddenly my expansion tank sprang a pinhole leak in the plastic near the bottom, so I thought I would just drain a little coolant out which would drain the expansion tank. I couldn't turn a brand new pet valve more than 90 degrees CCW. It was horizontal, as is shown in the picture, and I had to use 90 degree needle nose pliers to move it a little, then I could use my fingers to turn it straight up and down, but it would not budge after that. I was reluctant to force it, having broken the petvalve on my Corvette once. I ended up siphoning the tank using some irrigation hose and a turkey baster as a suction device, then draining about 8 cups out of the lower expansion tank hose that goes to the top of the radiator. Would have been a lot easier if the petvalve was turnable. These simple, easy, short jobs seem to take me lots lots longer than youtube videos show, and/or people who post here talk about.